Portrait of the Author Nikolay Leskov.

Leskov, Nikolay Semenovich (1831-1895), pen-name of N. Stebnitskiy, Russian novelist, author of many realistic novels and stories, depicting life of different layers of the Russian society; satires, essays, memoirs. A well-known story is his A Lady Macbeth of Mstensk, put into opera by Dmitry Shostakovich